Elledge v. State

Decision Date07 April 1977
Docket NumberNo. 48081,48081
PartiesWilliam Duane ELLEDGE, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
CourtFlorida Supreme Court

Richard L. Jorandby, Public Defender and Daniel T. O'Connell, Asst. Public Defender, for appellant.

Robert L. Shevin, Atty. Gen. and Richard W. Prospect, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee.

SUNDBERG, Justice.

This is an appeal from a sentence of death entered upon a plea of guilty to first degree murder in the Circuit Court of the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit, in and for Broward County.

Appellant pleaded guilty to charges of rape and first degree murder in the death of Margaret Anne Strack. Pursuant to Section 921.141, Florida Statutes, a penalty trial was held in circuit court with the result that the jury recommended by vote of eleven to one that Elledge be put to death. 1 Nine days later, on March 27, 1975, the trial judge sentenced appellant to fifty years in prison for the rape charge and to death by electrocution as punishment for the first degree murder conviction.

Elledge arrived in the Hollywood, Florida area from Toledo, Ohio on or about August 18, 1974, accompanied by one Paula Fain. (His wife was living, he thought, in Colorado at the time.) He and Miss Fain took up residence in her brother's apartment in Hollywood. On Friday, August 23, 1974, Elledge and Fain quarreled, and, in his words, they "split up and (he) proceeded to the House of Foam Bar." After drinking for a few hours, Elledge returned to the apartment "to try and straighten things out" but there was nobody home. He drank heavily at a series of bars and later, after the last establishment had closed, broke into several buildings in a shopping plaza, netting about $180 in cash. He spent the rest of the night in a coffee shop, which he left at about 6:00 a. m., Saturday, August 24, 1974. Appellant then proceeded to the Normandy Hotel on Route A1A, where he rented an efficiency apartment for the next three days. On Saturday afternoon, he visited a bar called McGowan's Lounge, where he met the decedent. After drinking and talking for about an hour, Elledge and Ms. Strack went together to the room at the Normandy Hotel, where they smoked marijuana. She began to tease him sexually, but after he responded, she refused to participate in intercourse. They struggled, and, after momentarily agreeing to submit, the decedent began to scream. Elledge started choking her with his hands while engaging in sexual intercourse. After some fifteen minutes he realized that she was dead.

The disparity in size between decedent and appellant she was larger than he presented Elledge with some problems when he attempted to move the corpse. He dragged the body out of the apartment and then threw it from the back door down a stairway which led to a back porch. Elledge then proceeded to lug the corpse across a walkway to where Ms. Strack's vehicle was parked. After forcing the body into the back seat of her car, he drove to a nearby church parking lot, opened the car door, and let the corpse slide onto the macadam. When discovered, the body was almost totally nude, with a pair of panties down around ankles which had been tied with an electric cord.

Appellant continued to drive Ms. Strack's car until he wrecked it in an accident shortly after midnight on Sunday morning, August 25, 1974. On Sunday afternoon Elledge took a bus from Hollywood to Jacksonville, but not until after he had killed a watchman named Edward Gaffney at a Pantry Pride food store in Hollywood which he was robbing in order to obtain funds with which to escape. Early Monday morning, in the course of committing an armed robbery at a Jacksonville motel, Elledge killed the manager, Kenneth Nelson, when the latter freed himself from the bonds with which he had been tied and brandished an (unloaded) gun.

Appellant was arrested in Jacksonville for the Nelson murder. He made what was later judicially determined to be a valid waiver of his Miranda rights and confessed to all three murders. A tape recording of this confession was played at appellant's penalty trial for the Strack murder, the only case which is before us for consideration today, 2 and it is from the transcription of this recording that much of the foregoing factual summary comes.

On this appeal appellant raises four points. Apart from a challenge to the constitutionality of our death penalty statute, an issue which was decided adversely to appellant in Proffitt v. Florida, 428 U.S. 242, 96 S.Ct. 2960, 49 L.Ed.2d 913 (1976), aff'g, 315 So.2d 461 (Fla.1975), these points relate to the fairness of the sentencing trial. The only issue which merits discussion is whether the trial court erred in allowing testimony and prosecutorial argument concerning the Gaffney and Nelson murders. Of course, we must also determine independently whether under all the circumstances the death penalty was appropriate punishment for the killing of Margaret Anne Strack.

As indicated above, at the conclusion of the sentencing trial the jury rendered its advisory sentence recommending by an 11-to-1 vote that defendant receive the death penalty. Section 921.141(2), Florida Statutes. On March 27, 1975, the trial judge entered his written sentence of death which included his findings in support of that sentence. Section 921.141(3), Florida Statutes. His findings were:

"B. As to the crime of Murder In The First Degree, this Court makes the following findings of fact:

(1.) The Defendant does have a significant history of prior criminal activity. The Defendant has been convicted of Murder In The First Degree in Jacksonville, Florida. He has also been convicted of felonious assault in the State of Colorado. This Defendant has been confined in various institutions for a great portion of his life for various other crimes.

(2.) The Defendant did not commit this Murder while under the influence of extreme mental or emotional disturbance. The Defendant was examined by two psychiatrists and both stated that at the time of the crime the Defendant understood and could appreciate the nature and consequences of his acts. Neither Doctor found nor reported that the Defendant was acting under the influence of extreme mental or emotional disturbance at the time of the crime. There was no indication of insanity.

(3.) The victim was not a willing participant in the Defendant's conduct and did not consent to these crimes.

(4.) The Defendant knowingly created a great risk of death to many persons in committing this murder and in the attempt to escape apprehension. In fact, the Defendant has admitted murdering Mr. Edward Gaffney in Hollywood, Florida only a few hours after committing this murder. Then, only a few hours later and while engaged in the perpetration of an armed robbery in Duval County, Florida and while attempting to obtain funds with which to escape, this Defendant shot and killed a Mr. Nelson.

This Defendant also created a great risk of death to Mrs. Nelson and the 16 year old grandson during the commission of the armed robbery in Duval County.

(5.) This murder was committed while the Defendant was raping the victim or shortly after raping the victim. The murder was committed for the purpose of avoiding arrest, as the victim had threatened to notify the police of the rape and after this threat by the victim, the Defendant committed this murder.

(6.) This murder was especially heinous, atrocious and cruel. The Defendant choked the victim until she was beating on the wall and gasping for air. He then threw her from the bed onto the floor and again choked her for approximately 15-20 minutes. During this period of time the Defendant was raping the victim.

After the rape and murder were completed, the Defendant then dragged the body of the victim to the door of the motel room, threw her down the steps and dragged her to an automobile. The Defendant then drove her to a church parking lot and threw her from the car. The Defendant then abandoned her almost nude body, with the legs tied together by an electric cord, in the church parking lot.

"Based upon the preceeding (sic) findings of fact, and based further upon the advisory sentence rendered to this Court by the twelve member jury, ten of whom voted to recommend the death sentence, and it being the opinion of this Court that there are sufficient aggravating circumstances existing to justify the sentence of death, and this Court, after weighing the aggravating and mitigating circumstances, being of the additional opinion that insufficient mitigating circumstances exist to outweigh the aggravating circumstances . . . "

At the sentencing trial, without objection from defendant's counsel, Mrs. Katherine Nelson, the widow of the victim of the Jacksonville murder, testified in detail concerning the events surrounding that crime. In closing, the prosecutor made extensive reference to those events. The appellant now asserts that it was error to admit that testimony and to permit argument based upon it. It should be noted that appellant's trial counsel stipulated to the admissibility of the existence of the prior conviction for the Nelson murder. It is asserted here, however, that because the Nelson murder occurred after the killing in the instant case, the crime does not qualify as an aggravating circumstance under Section 921.141(5)(b), Florida Statutes (1975). 3 Such an assertion simply does not comport with a plain reading of the statute. It is clear that the Legislature referred to "previous convictions" and not "previous crimes." It is apparent that the appellant had at the time of the trial in this case been convicted of the Nelson murder. In Provence v. State, 337 So.2d 783 (Fla.1976), we held that it was improper to consider under Section 921.141(5)(b), Florida Statutes, two armed robbery charges pending against Provence which predated the commission of the murder for which he was being tried. It was there emphasized that prior conviction was the...

To continue reading

Request your trial
166 cases
  • Ruiz v. Norris, PB-C-89-395.
    • United States
    • United States District Courts. 8th Circuit. United States State District Court of Eastern District of Arkansas
    • 2 Agosto 1994
    ...nonstatutory aggravating factors simply may not be introduced into evidence at any stage in the sentencing proceeding. See Elledge v. State, 346 So.2d 998, 1002. Under Florida law, the introduction of such evidence is error, although under some circumstances, the Florida Supreme Court treat......
  • Goode v. Wainwright, 82-5244
    • United States
    • United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (11th Circuit)
    • 2 Mayo 1983
    ...373 So.2d 882, 885 (Fla.1979) (reliance on nonstatutory aggravating circumstance by sentencing judge reversible error); Elledge v. State, 346 So.2d 998, 1003 (Fla.1977) (same); Purdy v. State, 343 So.2d 4, 6 (Fla.1977) (same).13 Cf. Ford v. Strickland, 696 F.2d at 811.14 Goode has also offe......
  • Witt v. State, 58329
    • United States
    • United States State Supreme Court of Florida
    • 24 Julio 1980
    ...presents for our consideration are these: (1) an alleged change in the law relative to sentencing, reflected primarily in Elledge v. State, 346 So.2d 998 (Fla. 1977), concerning the significance of improper aggravating circumstances where at least one mitigating circumstance has been found ......
  • State v. McDougall, 86A81
    • United States
    • United States State Supreme Court of North Carolina
    • 5 Abril 1983
    ...additional evidence in support of possible mitigating circumstances, instead of being bound by the State's stipulation. In Elledge v. State, 346 So.2d 998 (Fla.1977), the Supreme Court of Florida addressed the same question. There, as here, appellant's counsel stipulated to the admissibilit......
  • Request a trial to view additional results

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT